Saturday, January 29, 2011

“We can no longer live in a society where the public employees are the haves and taxpayers who foot the bills are the have-nots,” crowed Scott Walker, Wisconsin’s newly elected governor, in a recent speech.Forget about the fact that it was out-of-control bankers and greedy CEOs—the real haves in this country—who derailed the economy three years ago.Walker and his ilk are treating public sector workers like America’s Most Wanted, letting the corporate class slide out of the limelight and get back to fattening their bank accounts.

The woman slid beneath the northbound train about 9:20 p.m. Friday after her cane made contact with the train as it pulled into the station, throwing her off balance, TriMet said. She reportedly fell between the two ends of of the train's cars.

We have just learned that TriMet is requesting Union members in various positions to sign confidentiality agreements that could result in termination. The Union suggests that you sign this agreement and put "under protest" in parenthesis after your name. Please send a copy of this to the Union office. This is a change to the status quo and therefore we have sent a demand to bargain notice to TriMet.

Thank you for your comments. You make a lot of good and valid points. Our proposed safety assessment will include some of the things you suggest and fix some of the shortcomings you note. If our safety assessment works well, we'd like to look at using a similar system for yellow cards (scheduling and road conditions) in the future.

Our goals are to:
• ensure that requests don't get lost or misplaced,
• provide the operator a simple form to fill out,
• have a single point of contact from submittal to conclusion (Kimarie Webber), make sure the Operators gets a complete answer,
• have transparency by posting status of all requests on TriNet, and
• have Operations Support (department with Safety staff and Operations Training staff in it) be in charge of conducting the review and recommendation.

We will use an online from (front page of TriNet, no login required) , at least initially, to help ensure all comments get recorded. Paper forms could get lost.
We will acknowledge receipt of the form and have a single point of contact for Operators regarding status of their request (Kimarie Webber). The time needed to come up with a solution and getting the solution done will vary, depending on the severity of the safety condition.
There will be a summary chart available to all on TriNet to track all the safety assessments including status and conclusion.
Will consider using categories such as you suggested once we see what types of comments Operators submit. Intent of these categories is to make it easier for Operators to fill out.
We agree, keep it simple as 1-2-3:
1. Give us your name and badge
2. How you do want us to get back to you
3. Describe you safety concern and, if you have one, your suggested remedy.

The speech was a distraction from what seriously ails us: an unabated mortgage crisis, stubbornly high unemployment and a debt that spiraled out of control while the government wasted trillions making the bankers whole. Instead the president conveyed the insular optimism of his fat-cat associates:

Original post here!
1) Retaliation via public attacks through printed postings about my character,
2) Accused as anti-union and a plant brought in through TriMet Management to break the union,
3) Horrible graphic attacking my sexuality and accusations of being a pedophile,
4) Our Union President asking me to “Take The High Road” and ignore it while I lose an election and not allowed to return to the open position I was in,
5) Having to except this member’s actions as unstoppable.
The other members who have been exposed to similar type actions have not addressed it because union officers advise against protecting yourself from other members for fear the membership will view the member taking a stance will be viewed as turning on a member. I have been advised it would be poor to address this and just try to do my best around it if I would like any chance of getting voted in to office. I have been advised that I must find a very clear statement in our bylaws, constitution or contract the she has violated or not only would I not get support of the membership I will risk any possible chance of holding any office position.
So the above are pressures I have against me. One member has been able to take away my civil right to not fear persecution for bearing witness, to have to except a bulling, hostile and uncomfortable work environment and to except Libel and Slanderous postings each time I would like to advance in this membership. One member has gone out of her way to welcome me to this union in such a way.
On page 104 of ATU Constitution and General Laws 21.6 Membership in Good Standing it states “No member shall be allowed to injure the interests of a fellow member by undermining him or her in place, wage, or in any other willful act.”

Any organization that wants to maintain strong moral and morals within its membership has very clear protocols in place that protects its members from opportunities of corruption. Putting full trust in leadership without oversight and accountability opens the doors to allow the leadership to control the membership and puts the members as victims to the leaders will.

Our current secret voting structure:
Currently we have close to 5,000 members and when a membership secret vote is required the vote must be cared over ten (10) different meetings that last close to seven (7) days. Because of the different locations and the time period involved it appears our Secretary/Treasurer is the main person in charge of the security of member’s votes. With one person in charge and no oversight what safety measures are in place to prevent this officer from controlling the outcome of a vote?
• Is the total membership attendance taken from the sign in sheets?
• If retiree’s are not able to vote can a retiree sign in sheet be created so the total of attendees vs. votes match? (this will allow for the correct percentage to be posted)
• When blank ballots are handed out they are not counted and the total blank ballots that are out at that time are unknown. Maintaining a strong inventory of ballots that go out vs. ballots that come back will help assure members from saving a ballot of an issue the do not feel strong on then using that ballot plus the other one they got for an issue they feel strong on. This would give the member two votes on one issue. Inventory of Ballots will prevent this type of abuse.
• As a meeting comes to an end all ballots have been collected, sealed in labeled envelopes and place in a large briefcase. Also in this briefcase are other blank envelopes and blank ballots. Keeping all these items together in such a manner can allow votes to be altered upon transportation and being out of sight of the membership.

So at the end of the meeting that is the last the memberships sees of their ballots and are later told the outcome from an announcement from the Secretary/Treasurer or another full time officer. Our current process has NO OVERSIGHT and gives the opportunity for a small number of people to control the outcome of the entire membership.

Currently or Constitution and Bylaws allows our Executive Board officers the ability to call an emergency board meeting to address this. It requires the majority of Executive Board officers to make this happen. There is a total of fourteen (14) Executive Board Officers. This means a least eight (8) officers need to request a special meeting. This is our opportunity to see if the majority of our Executive Board officers are in support of protecting our members rights or if the officers have banded together to protect each other. If an emergency meeting is called about this issue it will be a clear indication that our officer’s care about the members they represent and will do everything in their power to protect us. If this is held off until the scheduled Executive Board meeting it is a clear indication that this is not an important issue to the officers. Find out where your Executive Board Officer stands on this issue.

Update, 11:12 a.m.: Trimet has tweeted that Quatama station is now open and trains are running, but riders should expect delays.TriMet light-rail traffic has stopped near the Quatama MAX station in Hillsboro as police respond to reports of a suspicious package found on the tracks, according to Washington County dispatch.TriMet said via Twitter that shuttle buses are transporting riders between stations in place of MAX.More details to come.